


Our Forever

by Queeninbroceliande



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Post-Canon, chalex - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24647665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queeninbroceliande/pseuds/Queeninbroceliande
Summary: “So how do you see us in twenty years?”“Together. I think it’s all that matters.”
Relationships: Charlie St. George/Alex Standall, Zach Dempsey & Alex Standall
Comments: 17
Kudos: 120





	Our Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Hi yall! This is only my second work in English which is not my mother language but I hope you'll like it anyway ❤

The night hasn’t fallen yet but the wind is cold, and Charlie has a bad feeling. Tonight is his first game of the season, his first game since he has came back from his summer holidays and, also, tonight is his first game without Alex at Liberty High School.

He knows that Tyler and Alex have been talking about driving home together from Oakland where they respectively attend a Photography School and Berkeley. And he is pretty sure he has seen Tyler earlier in a corner with Estela. But Alex isn’t there, he has an evening class, so here is Charlie, standing all alone in the cloakroom. The other jocks are on the field and he’s supposed to pick up a thing and meet them for the game and Alex is supposed to be with him and Zach should have been outside already but here they are.

“Something’s the matter?”

Charlie hadn’t seen much of Zach during the summer. The graduate boy had had to catch up a lot before joining his Music school and he has stopped attending parties. He has stopped everything since Justin has died. He has stopped the alcohol and stopped being a mess but he has also stopped seeing his friends.

“It’s nothing actually,” replies Charlie.

“Sounds like it is.”

“I guess I feel a little nervous.”

“Is this about the game, really?”

It isn’t. Charlie had won multiple times without Alex by his side and he knows his boyfriend isn’t deep into sport. He wasn’t deep into partying neither or into flirting and basically into living when Charlie had first met him. But things have changed since then. Alex has a shadow in his eyes, he’ll always have these little blackness’s upon his frail shoulders, but he also has a very special smile since they were both crowned at Prom. He’s been blooming all summer, and maybe he’ll always be a pale flower, but they have grown together and forever, Alex Standall and Charlie Saint George.

“Did you really enjoyed that kiss with Alex?”

They have been together, they have traveled together and laughed together and slept together, they have loved each other. Alex had first been reluctant and embarrassed but from the moment he admitted his feelings he became as cuddly and needy as Charlie, allowing himself to trust and admire completely, because it was the only way he knew how to love.

At some point Alex had even said he would come for every game indeed, and now Charlie knows it isn’t his fault, but he can’t help but wonder if they are really going to be a forever thing or just a summer thing.

“Well he’s a good kisser if that’s what you meant.”

“It’s not exactly.”

“You mean is Alex in love with you?”

Charlie nods shyly, and he immediately feels awkward but Zach has a smirk, and he wraps his arms around his athlete shoulders.

“You know he dated Jessica for a while, right?”

“I know how it ended.”

“Exactly. Alex’s not the one who goes with someone without deeply liking him. Because he knows what it feels like, and because he just doesn’t do that. He first rejected you because he hated himself so much he even hated the idea of being loved by someone like you. But from the moment he allows you into his world there is not exit door.”

“Do you love him?”

“I do. But not the way you do, and not the way he needs.”

“Why haven’t we seen you this summer?”

Zach drops his arms down his tired body and in the eyes he glances at Charlie the ghosts are dancing in the dark.

“Because I knew how to be the guy helping his friend to survive but not the other way around.”

“Man…”

“Don’t. I’ll be glad too, I know that,” Zach says.

He knows it. He also knows that Alex would loved to help him. But he hates expressing his feelings and he hates showing his pain and he just wants to take his time to heal calmly. He does miss his friends, he misses Alex above them all, but he has always erected walls between the world and his true self. He needs to tear down the walls alone to find his life eventually.

“He’s so nice, and you are too, so please always stay true to him,” he adds on a quivering voice.

They stare at each other for a few seconds weaving the bonds between them. Charlie has been Zach’s friend before Alex’s and he knows his new coach isn’t the one to cry but in his black eyes the ghosts are liquefying and for another second Charlie wants to hug him.

But Zach has a smile that isn’t Charlie’s one nor even Alex's and he firmly takes his arm and turns around.

They walk silently, needing no more words, everything has been said and the things that haven’t been said have been heard, somehow. Charlie is the only one who has seen how deeply guilty Zach has been feeling since he has beat Bryce. Alex was too stifled by his own guilt to really noticed it. He’s too nice with his friends and too intransigent with himself to think for a second that, if it hadn’t been for Zach, he would never have killed Bryce and gone even deeper into depression. Zach has. Zach has wondered how Alex would have turned if he hadn’t had to cope with a murder.

When Alex said he was glad to be alive at last and when he grabbed Charlie’s hands Zach nearly cried with relief. It lasted just an instant. Then, he nearly cried again because of his own grief, because he had another flowering grave to preserve. And he decided he’d live.

He pushes Charlie to the field and feels relieved because he feels like the real Zach. Like how he used to be before Bryce and Monty. Like the Zach who’d do anything for the sake of his friends. Everybody’s been telling Alex that he deserves a Charlie, that he deserves to be happy, but no one told Charlie the contrary, no one told Charlie Alex is to be deserved too, and it’s insane because they’re the same. Because Charlie is kind and so is Alex. Because Alex deserves happiness and so does Charlie. And when he watches them Zach knows that they found it, their happiness, and he'll do anything to protect it.

“Who are we?”

“Tigers!”

“WHO ARE WE?”

“LIBERTY TIGERS!”

Charlie played one of his best games. His teammates are shouting it, Zach is telling him, Kerba is approving and the students in the bleachers are yelling his name among others. But that’s not how he knows he played well tonight. He knows when he leaves his partners, he knows when he walks hesitantly on the grass and then on the track, he knows when he stops behind the grandstands and when he sees Alex with a red and white flower bouquet.

“I think I owe you this”, says Alex swinging on his legs.

They never really mentioned Charlie’s promposals. It doesn’t mean Alex hasn’t been thinking about it. He actually thinks a lot about Charlie and he remembers how confidante, how persistent he has been. Charlie knew his insecurities and has never held it against him. Alex knows Charlie’s too. He knows he’s nervous about them living separately. He knows he needs to see him a lot and it’s good because Alex needs him too. They need them two.

“You bought roses”, notices Charlie.

“Guys do it. It seems it’s a thing.”

“And you skipped classes.”

“Jessica asked me what I will regret the most in twenty years: having skipped a class or having missed something that really matters to you?”

He opens his arms widely and the next thing he knows he’s hugging Charlie. Then he wonders whatever the hell he’s supposed to do with the flowers and thinks he’ll never buy a bouquet again because he can’t touch Charlie the way he wants to do. But Charlies takes the roses and carefully puts them on the ground.

Alex can places a hand on Charlie’s soft face and the other in his back. Charlie puts his two hands on Alex’s slightly pink cheeks. When they kiss, everyone is still yelling around them, about the game and maybe about their kings. They feel like they still have a crown and a tiara. They feel royal. And Tyler, and Estela and even Zach, the loyal friends looking at them, they feel so joyful they could march the earth.

Suddenly the clamor goes out and Alex and Charlie enter a world that only belongs to them. They’re not kissing anymore but just looking at each other. The smell of sweat mixes with Charlie’s scent. It reminds Alex of the holidays, of the sunny afternoons they spent on the beach. It reminds him Charlie, and Tyler, and Clay, and Jessica running on the fine sand. He watched them a lot, he watched Charlie a lot with his drops of water on his face, and for the first time ever since he tried to killed himself, he didn’t felt sad that his leg was too weak to allow him such long games. Because he was glad enough to see them all.

Because he’s glad enough to have Charlie looking at him, caressing his cheek with his thumb and smiling, saying the magical words he thought he’d never heard.

“So how do you see us in twenty years?” asks Charlie between two _I love you_.

“Together. I think it’s all that matters.”

And because it’s all that matters he promises again he’ll never miss one of Charlie’s games. Now Charlie knows. He knows he’s the luckiest person in the world and he knows his forever lies in the perfect hands of Alex Standall.

**Author's Note:**

> I clearly WAS a huge Zalex Fan in season two but that feeling eased in season three and eventually I fall in love with Alex and Charlie. I think they're just perfect for each other and truly see them as a forever couple. So I guess I'll write more about these two until we have a spin-off of their wedding and children haha ❤ .


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